Moderate Republicans

The Moderate Republicans were a liberal political faction of the French Second Republic and the Second French Empire. They were formed from a group of politicians, writers, and journalists close to the Le National newspaper, and they won the 1848 Constituent Assembly election, defeating their monarchist foes. After the June Days uprising, the Moderate Republicans took a hard stance against their socialist allies, and the faction began to experience internal divisions. In 1849, the party was reduced to 75 seats in the Assembly, and the party was massively disowned. After 1849, the anti-clerical Moderate Republicans became rivals with the pro-Concordat of 1801 Bonapartists, and, after Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in an 1851 coup, he repressed the Moderate Republicans and had 239 deported to Cayenne, 10,000 imprisoned in Algeria, and 1,500 others exiled. In 1859, Napoleon amnestied the exiled Republicans, but many refused to return until liberty returned. The liberal laws of 1868 allowed for the Moderate Republicans to return to the political scene, and they supported radical, progressive, laicist, and reformist goals under Leon Gambetta. After the 1871 Paris Commune uprising, the Moderate Republicans were divided between the Opportunists and the Republican Union of France.